The EU and Turkey Need Each Other
Earlier this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan condemned the European Union’s “strategic blindness,” declaring that it cannot truly be a “global actor” without Turkey. While such comments do little to improve the bilateral relationship, they contain more than a grain of truth.
MADRID – Even before Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel catapulted the Middle East back to the forefront of global geopolitics, the European Union recognized the critical importance of Turkey as a bridgehead to the region. Yet the EU’s policy of engagement with Turkey has long been mostly on life support.